The present invention relates generally to refrigerators with icemakers housed within the fresh food compartment, and more specifically, to methods and apparatus for cooling icemakers in such refrigerators.
Generally, a refrigerator includes an evaporator, a compressor, a condenser, and an expansion device.
The evaporator receives coolant from the refrigerator in a closed loop configuration where the coolant is expanded to a low pressure and temperature state to cool the space and objects within the refrigerator.
It is also now common in the art of refrigerators, to provide an automatic icemaker. In a “side-by-side” type refrigerator where the freezer compartment is arranged to the side of the fresh food compartment, the icemaker is usually disposed in the freezer compartment and delivers ice through an opening in the access door of the freezer compartment. In this arrangement, ice is formed by freezing water with cold air in the freezer compartment, the air being made cold by the cooling system or circuit of the refrigerator. In a “bottom freezer” type refrigerator where the freezer compartment is arranged below a top fresh food compartment, convenience necessitates that the icemaker be disposed in the access door of the top mounted fresh food compartment and deliver ice through an opening in the access door of the fresh food compartment, rather than through the access door of the freezer compartment. It is known in the art, that a way to form ice in this configuration is to deliver cold air, which is cooled by the evaporator of the cooling system, through an interior cavity of the access door of the fresh food compartment to the icemaker to maintain the icemaker at a temperature below the freezing point of water.
When a liquid coolant is used to cool the ice mold body, the heating of the ice mold body heats the liquid coolant within the ice mold body. This requires more energy to be expended than would be required to heat the ice mold body itself because not only does the material of the ice mold body need to be heated to a temperature above the freezing point of water, the mass of coolant contained within the ice mold body must also be heated. This heated coolant must subsequently be cooled again so that more ice can be formed. This process increases ice production time because of the extra time required to heat the coolant within the ice mold body, and the extra time required to cool the heated coolant for production of new ice.
Therefore, an ability to operate more efficiently, both in speed of ice preparation and maintenance of the refrigerator is desired. Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a method and apparatus for making maintenance and ice production more efficient.